Book Porn

Facebook, you cad! How could you?

Every three months or so Facebook and I break up. 

Ours is a volatile relationship. The kind you know damn good and well you’re going back to, but you’ve silently vowed to hold your ground until your combatant comes to their senses, buys you daisies and drinks, and indulges you with an hour or two of non-stop make-up posts. After the reconciliation, things float right along until the next time your romance takes a turn toward lamp tossery. 

This particular break up was rooted in a number of factors. Facebook, once a trusted companion, helping to balm the work-a-day blues of being in front of a computer for 8 hours, had a hold on me of which I wasn’t fully aware. I am, by no means, a Facebook junkie (I don’t even have one of those Farm thingees), but lately I have felt a sort of compulsion to check status updates. A need to toggle back and forth between profile and home in hopes someone might grant me a little electronic validation. I've obsessively played my turns at Lexulous. And waited with hastened breath to see of what my buddy just became the mayor. I looked at photos of people's art. And kids. And cats. And pictures of a baby shower thrown by a friend of a friend (from high school?) Enough already!  Perhaps my recent job transition and an assortment of uncertainties regarding real life had me searching for answers. Answers that cannot possibly be found in HTML code. Perhaps my natural Peeping Tom-girl urges were in hyper-drive. Whatever the reason, I had to get it in check.

Add to that a rash of posts which I felt were antithetical to being a good human. I will say this again, perched from the high horse I call SoapBox, I know the world is a hateful place. I don’t need to see racism and unrepentant spite rear their ugly mugs in updates when I’m merely trying to get a beat on the best Mexican food in Columbus (Cuco’s, by the way). And who the hell, you might ask, am I (a woman who swears like it’s her part-time job, rambles incessantly about the detachable parts that come with her Robot Boyfriend, and whose photos take place mainly in local bars) to pass judgment on others for their particular political/social outlooks? The short answer is nobody. 

I know the current social climate in which we live promotes the notion that we are all big, fat somebodies whose every fleeting thought is a magnificent pearl to be shared with the world, but that might be the subject of an altogether different fit of my low-fi bombast. Also, it’s MY newsfeed. You want to advertise that you’re a racist, homophobic, short-sighted cracker? Do it on your own time. How do you say “delete” in Americun? 

Which brings me to the heart of the break up. Don’t for a minute get me wrong--Facebook is a swell cat. 

The Pros: this social networking monster keeps a certain notoriously bad telephone user connected to the people I love. And some I just like. And one dude I don’t even know! But he has good taste, so I hang on to him because he posts old punk rock videos. I’m Facebook friends with the first boy I ever kissed (age 6), the first boy I ever KISSed (age 14) and the last boy I ever kissed (age “muffled response”). I get invites to shows--shows I will continue to go to until my inevitable ventilator becomes too unwieldy. I also shamelessly anthropomorphize food, send along hilarity whenever I find it, and empathize genuinely when anyone’s going through a bad patch. Oh, and I get to list things. Granted, it‘s the same shit over and over. What?? I like Elvis Costello the most and I think Jaws is one of the greatest films of all time. I hate Rush and romantic comedies. So go ahead. Bring a class-action lawsuit on a woman whose opinions have gone largely unaltered since 1984. 

The Cons: I knew there was blood in the water when one of my best friends commented on my post while sitting across the room from me. There is also the matter of my low-grade ADD. My wayward attention span is something that has always required a little wrangling. So while EffBee and I were at loggerheads, I tried to better examine what kind of time I was wasting rummaging through the dailies of everyone else's life. In essence, the question was how does this website impact my actual existence? And without sounding too scientific I learned, in point of fact, it was a metric fuck-ton. Being that I have often fancied myself the creative writerly type, I realized I hadn't written anything of substance since that last time ol’ Face and I were on the outs. I rarely read fiction anymore. I peek at the television over the laptop. Mind you, this isn't all Facebook's fault. I don't need an A&E FB Intervention or anything. A lot of the blame could also be placed on the broad shoulders of the almighty Internet. Though I think that might edge into some sort of Sins-of -the-Father type territory, and might be straying from the subject at hand or (better still) be fodder for yet another diatribe. There is also the altogether different matter of reprogramming your brain to not automatically think in third person. Thusly, "Jennifer Bee demands a Coney dog" reverts to "Hey, I would like a Coney dog."

I started to write about "the search to understand myself." But then again, kids--existential I ain't. Though I do believe we are collectively moving toward, perhaps not a loss of 'self', but certainly a redefinition of our selves.  These ego-driven internety time-killers are not our real lives. But then again, I just asked my son how to go about getting myself one of those high-falutin' frou-frou blog dealies. To which he just rolled his eyes. I suppose the bottom line is this--I don't know what the future holds for Facebook and I. We don't want it to be over, but we know we can't go on like this. And sometimes you just got to know when to fold 'em.  Who knows what I'll take up next? As web affairs go I've already (ahem) experimented with Etsy--and let me tell you, that was a rough and pricey couple of months. Bitch. I do know this--I have more to say than the mere 10 sentences I might churn out over the course of a week. So that's what I'm going to endeavor to work on. That and my actual factual life. But before I do...here comes a week's worth of status updates condensed and categorized into my Top Ten favorite subjects:

Movies--I wish I lived in Woody Allen's apartment from Play It Again, Sam.

Drinking--Wednesday 6:22 am: How early is too early for a rum and coke? Or just the coke? Or just the rum?

Work--Dear Ladies of the library, I had a step-mother. Meaning: I'm stocked up on enough passive aggression for the rest of my life. Thanks ever so, Jennifer

Eats--If you had told me 20 years ago that I would like black beans this much, I would have punched you straight in the gob.

TeeVee--Fringe! Yippee!!

Shoes--The strappier the happier.

Our Animal Friends--Finally. I caught sight of the fabled east side an albino squirrel. Pret-ty rad.

Hair--Big. Natch

Film quote--"I call it 'the hot dog tree' because, well...it's a hot dog tree." - Big Top Pee Wee

Song lyric--Something shamefully cool - Big Top Nick Cave